


Psych 101

by Control_Room, Random_ag



Series: Tortured Tales [12]
Category: The Man With Eyes - Fandom
Genre: Bystander Syndrome, Crying, Defiance, Gen, Platonic Love, past death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27678797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Control_Room/pseuds/Control_Room, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Random_ag/pseuds/Random_ag
Summary: It's been a long time.Not long enough to forget.
Series: Tortured Tales [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023520





	Psych 101

They… were standing.

Joey stared at her as if a vengeful ghoul had dragged its rotting body to his door to tear him piece by piece while also having had the time and decency to get sharply dressed.

Niamh looked up at him (20 centimetres shorter as always) with half lidded eyes and a frowning mouth.

It was awkward. 

It always was.

Duncle swallowed roughly and tried to fix his collar as casually as he could. 

Icy eyes looked into his soul. There were no questions in them, nor any answers.

They were just looking. 

Right into his soul.

It was fine. Yes, it was also awkward, but things can be fine and awkward at the same time, pal. 

Still, grey and blue sat on the color wheel, wanting to speak to each other, but neither knowing the words to say, nor having ever heard of what they should say.

What _could_ they say? Things had fallen apart and fallen out. 

Duncle shifted slightly.

She still stared.

He looked right back, eyes steadily on the other’s.

He would try not to break the silence before she would want him to, and he imagined she would stay uncharacteristically quiet to not punch the man, despite how much she wanted to. Normally, had this been one of the general populace, she would already have punted him into the sun, but this was Joey. He asked her to come over, and she did, without any calling beforehand to accept the invitation or even answering the phone when he had called, or replying to the dozens of letters he had sent her in a wild and desperate panic over the years. It made him wonder if she came just because she wanted to (for one reason or another), or after hearing his voice message. 

He inhaled through the gap of his teeth. The air made a little whistle.

If the silence had gone on any longer he would have crumbled like a subpar cookie in a jar of milk.

“I was expecting a letter.” he tried to joke with a whisper, wobbling up a smile.

Niamh did not laugh.

“ ‘s not that easy puttin’ a punch in an envelope.”

He wheezed a giggle.

To his absolute surprise and relief, she gifted him a small, glad smile.

She wound up her fist, however, and reeled back. Duncle merely closed his eyes and prepared to wince. However, the shove never came, a gentle brush of knuckles against his shoulder. He opened his eyes in surprise. 

“Why not?” he asked her. She questioned, “Why yes?”

To that he had no answer, except a small huff of a laugh, Niamh’s chuckle joining in slightly. His smile dropped only a little as hers grew. He… he did not... understand that.

Niamh leaned her head to the side: “So.” she simply spoke, “Ye gonna invite me in or?”

“Oh! Oh, yes, I should, do, uh, that.” _he had invited her over, after all_ “You want some, uh… Tea? I have tea, fruit tea?”

“I’d love that, actually.”

The water began to heat up as Niamh waited in the living room, and Joey tried not to think.

Sugar, tea, blackberry? Ok, did she like honey?, I think she did, I don’t know if I have honey, I killed him. It was all my fault. All my fault. I killed him. I let him die.

I’m sorry.

I let him die.

He stared into the cooker’s flame.

Cups. Check the cups. Can’t serve tea if there’s no clean cups.

He returned with a pair of sickeningly sweet cups of steaming blackberry tea; Niamh accepted hers with a quiet thank you and a pitch black smile.

They did not quite speak.

They sat in silence sipping their burning beverages together, like they used to do years before pulling all nighters in the Studios’ during the winter. They were barely thirty then, and look at them now. Just a pair of old adults in a worn down living room.

“Did I tell you I have a nephew? Or write…?”

“I don’t remember. Don’t think so, no.”

“He’s named Charlie, he’s a sweetheart.”

“Really?”

“Yes- and he’s an artist!”

She giggled: “Runs in the family, don’t it?”

“Apparently!” he chuckled back.

I killed him.

The tea was starting to lose its heat - it was starting to get barely tepid.

I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

Their laughter quieted down slowly, coddled and cozy between the old wallpaper, and it felt comfortable, nostalgic. It felt warm and safe, it felt right. It was supposed to. 

I let him die.

I killed him.

I let him die.

I’m so, so sorry.

Niamh gently put her drink down on the coffee table and looked at him, straight in the eye. Her hands raised to cup his cheeks. She tilted her head and spoke, so simply.

“I love you.”

There was no romance in those words. There was no wish for or promise of something neither of them could give to the other. But there was love, honest love, and it was overflowing from every inch of deadly pale skin into his own sickly face, and it was so, so much.

Tears trickled down Joey’s cheeks as he gasped and babbled wordlessly, overwhelmed by three words. With trembling hands he left his tea to get cold on the floor, and with all that earnest love washing over him so sweetly he looked up at her.

“Why?” he strained his throat to ask. She smiled, and murmured gently: “Yer an easy man to miss. And I don’t mean when ya miss a punch or look over someone in a big fockin’ crowd. I mean when you wanna see ‘em again.”

He laughed a little. He choked on his laughter when he saw she was crying as well. She pulled him into a hug, and they stayed like that for a long while, breathing together, crying together, mourning as one in defiance of fate, a fate that would have stolen their friendship.


End file.
